The Reagan Democrats stayed home or voted populist Dem candidates. Why? Simple, they were tire of being told that it is OK for GOP corporate types to outsource their jobs, hire H-1B replacement workers and tacitly approve illegal immigrants to take away their jobs. When these blue collar types ask what will happen to America if everything is outsourced and the middle class is displaced. GOP response, free trade is innovative and dynamic, but it comes with a price, the middle class laborer must learn to live thru the instability and accept a saw tooth salary pattern and career (i.e begin at a starting salary, work for three years and then be replaced, start all over again in a new field/company and a new starting salary, work three years and get replaced and start the cycle all over again) while the CEO/financiers/free traders enjoy salary increases year after year after year. When the working man lobbies for their interests, they are called protectionists, isolationists and etc, but when the corporations lobby to protect their interests it is called astute business/political practice. The working man basicly did what corporate America has been doing to them in the last twenty years, they became political consumers, and looked after their narrow interests, no different from their corporate employers. Until the GOP comes to grip with the instability caused by free trade, the Dems will use populism to beat the GOP (ironicly by narrow margins) in future elections, over and over and over. Free trade GOP will never give up their policy, because even under Democrat rule, they will get what they want. Higher taxes is not a problem, because the wealthy will simply move it to another low tax/tax free investment, but atleast illegal immigrants will be given amnesty and cheap labor will be available forever in the US for their factories and domestic services.
In the aftermath of last November's election, I suggested that the biggest "culprit" in the GOP losses was not tbe conservative Republican voter who stayed home "to send a message" . . . it was the socially conservative independent or Democrat who got up out of bed on Election Day, read one more obituary about a casualty in Iraq from a local National Guard unit, drove past a bunch of illegal Mexican immigrants loitering in front of a local convenience store, and asked himself: "WHAT'S THE F#CKING POINT?!"
Great post.